Consider yourself at home!

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I’m not sure how long we’ve been in our new messroom now, a few weeks? I could look back, but I’m lazy. Anyway, after making a show of conforming to what the managers want (sitting inside, not messing around with the furniture etc) we have started to decorate and adapt, to bend our environment to suit what we want – after all, that’s what gardeners are good at.

I nicked a chair that was in one of the gardens, left there by a resident, and moved it inside so I don’t have to sit on one that slowly tips me off. We found two benches abandoned and put them outside in the shade. We emptied out the tin shed of bikes and unused cleaning products and turned it into a smoking room for when it’s raining. Mateo fixed a broken table and we put that between the benches. We even put a few paving slabs down, and added some plants, tinsel and an umbrella for decoration. It looks great.

The only downside is now the managers like to come and sit with us. Never more than one at a time, I don’t think they like sitting with each other.

Word of the day: labtebricole – living in holes

“Sticks and stones can break my bones and I have my Swiss Army Knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self defense and I won’t go to prison.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Don’t get sidetracked…

Posted on by inkbiotic

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More words of wisdom from the mind of an algorithm (they know us so well)

The little sleep I had last night was loaded with dreams, the kind that vanish from your memory as soon as you wake, but leave you with a feeling that something happened. And that sense keeps coming back, almost like a memory: Something important happened. But no idea what. Since it was a dream, I’m assuming it was about zombies.

Anyway, once I reached five am I couldn’t stand being in bed any longer and went to the window and saw this sky

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So that was sublime. I hope you’re all having a beautiful day too.

‘The door is wide and open, don’t go back to sleep.’ Rumi

Word of the day: Hypaethral – roofless; open to the sky

Inspirational!

Posted on by inkbiotic

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Nothing happened today. Zero. So I thought I’d share some unusual inspiration. Usually inspirational quotes make me feel lonely. Like peering through the window of a party I’m not invited to because I don’t relate to the perky thinking. Not that I’m miserable, I think life can be beautiful and people can be great and possibilities are endless if we can figure them out. But all the gushing sentiment rings hollow to me. It’s twee.

Then I discovered online artificially intelligent inspirational quotes (ie a computer creates them using existing inspirational quotes as a template). They tend more towards the bizarre, the nonsensical and the cynical, which suits me to a t. And who can disagree with ‘Choose not to be horrible’?

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And this is something we all need to remember, right?

Word of the day: Afflatus – divine breath, inspiration

 

I’m attracting trouble again

Posted on by inkbiotic

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This morning I was making my way to the station, when I think a guy threatened to punch me. It was very odd.

I was walking beside a main road, when I saw him coming towards me on my side of the pavement. He wasn’t big, but he was wiry, tense and with a look of utter rage and hatred, staring straight at me. At about fifteen feet away, he began punching at the air in front of him, all the while looking at me. I stepped to one side so that I wasn’t in his path, he stepped to the same side, still punching. I stopped, not sure what else to do. He kept coming, still punching, I didn’t move. Finally he stopped and stood in front of me, fists flailing in my direction, but not quite reaching. I stared at him trying to find an expression that didn’t look scared or aggressive, I probably just looked blank. Then with a jabbing finger he pointed to one side, presumably to suggest I walk around him. I did, waiting for him to thump me as I walked past, he didn’t and I caught the train. Too strange to deal with at seven in the morning.

At work we got guilted into using the new mess room.

‘We redecorated this for you all! Why aren’t you in it? Don’t you like it?’

So the smokers sat outside the new room on rocks (no benches here) and the rest of us sat inside on the most uncomfortable chairs in the world. They have some fancy new ergonomic design (remember they were acquired from another business that was throwing them out) and they slope downwards. So when you sit on one, you slowly slide off. The only way to stay on the chair is to constantly press your feet against the floor. This is fucking up my back. I’m going to pinch an old, battered wooden chair from one of the gardens and put that inside.

Word of the day: orey-eyed – expressing anger through the eyes

Angry Staring Man! The Encounter.

Posted on by inkbiotic

 

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‘There is a point at which you have to stop preparing to do something and just do it.’

Embrace the Soul Backwards – Emily Stardust

So after the success/not success of talking to fabulous woman yesterday (I got a nod!), I decided to try with angry staring man today. For anyone not keeping up (ie almost all of the world) angry staring man is the smart dressed man who sits on the train staring straight ahead. Since me and him were the only ones not looking at our phones or a book, I felt we had a connection. Since he looks like he’s involved in all sorts of dodgy corporate dealings, I have been curious about what I could learn from him. So today was the day.

So I sat opposite  him, trying to keep the expectant look off my face. Would he tell me about the secret shenaninagans going on at Bohemian Grove? Or the dirty deals between politicians and arms dealers? Would he explain where the tunnels lead underneath International banks?

My excitement lasted a happy moment as I looked across at him, prepared to demand his attention, and then…the happy moment wrinkled into one of sickness.

He stank! You know that sickly perfume they pump out in public toilets? Angry staring man smelt like somebody had poured a bucket of that over him. Or like that gross perfume they put on sanitary products for some twisted reason. I didn’t start a conversation, I was too busy trying not to breathe. And I don’t believe that anyone who  goes to Bohemian Grove would smell that bad.

Word of the day: Graveolent – rank-smelling; fetid

Betrayed! No nomophiliac!

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“I find people confusing.”

― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Word of the day: Bionomics – study of organisms interacting in their environments

Ok, so today I was going to do it, I was going to talk to angry staring man. I spent the walk to the station psyching myself up, I had a shortlist of possible opening gambits. I was ready. But as I walked down the aisle, I saw him sitting bold as brass and looking at his phone!

He must have known that was a betrayal, we don’t look at our phones! That’s what everyone else does, but we’re the nomophiliacs! We’re different! But was looking at the screen very seriously, as if he was getting some news of a corporate takeover of the mafia. Or plans to replace the Queen with a clone. Definitely something with huge repercussions for society. So can I forgive him?

You may be thinking, If angry staring man is so important, why is he taking the train, wouldn’t he have a chauffeured car? But that’s because you’re wrong and don’t understand the ways of angry staring man.

Anyway, so I went and sat opposite fabulous woman. I tried to catch her eye again, but she had a careful not-catching-eye demeanour. Maybe she is a celebrity and she’s sick of plebs trying to talk to her. Maybe she’s a superhero and is worried if she gets distracted by petty conversations she won’t be ready for when the villain tries to flip the train into another dimension. There is a black stripe in the middle of her orange striped hair now. Tiger!

I haven’t given up yet, but I’m not good at this.

No nomophobia

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“I could see her fighting an internal battle, her face furrowed and fevered, her sentences trailing off as her concentration kept flicking time and time again. She was tethered by a choke chain to her cell and whenever she tried to pull away into the cafe where we sat, the chain yanked and she was checking for texts once more.”

Our Last Hurrah – Dorothea Wallick

Word of the day: Nomophobia – the irrational fear of being without your mobile phone or being unable to use your phone for some reason, such as the absence of a signal or running out of minutes or battery power.

Continuing on my people-watching on the morning train…

I’ve realised that one of the twins is slightly cooler than the other. He’s a bit bigger, walks with more of a strut and less of a hunch. I wonder if he knows, I wonder if he lords it over the other one, or if the other one is resentful. Could wind up as a Whatever Happened to baby Jane situation. Going to keep watching to figure out the dynamic.

Today biker boot lady is wearing earrings with lizards on them. But not dainty little silver lizards. These are the size and colour of actual lizards. And I’m sure I just saw one of them twitch.

Yesterday I mentioned angry staring man. He was there today, staring furiously.

Because I tend to spend the journey ambling around my thoughts, I don’t look at my phone or read. I stare out the window or watch my fellow passengers. But everybody else, everybody! is somehow engaged with their phone: playing games, watching TV, having a conversation. That rectangle of technology contains everything people want and reality does not.

The only other person on the train not looking at his phone, is angry staring man. He looks straight ahead, occasionally around, with a steely look of impatience. Sometimes chewing gum. He wears a smart suit with a silk lined jacket and shiny shoes. I’m aware when I’m sitting there in my mud streaked trousers, with my hair tied back in what has been kindly referred to as a ‘messy bun’ and my dirty nails, that me and angry staring man don’t have much in common. But it’s just me and him not snagged by our phones, which means we are the only two floating around real life while everybody else is asleep.

I know what I’m thinking about, but what about him? Unlike my vague wandering thoughts, his look is angry and filled with intent. He’s not in a morning fug, he is working things out. Important things.

Ah look at all the lonely people tum te tum te tum te tum te tum te

Posted on by inkbiotic

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“I like to prowl ordinary places
and taste the people-
from a distance.”
― Charles Bukowski, Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

Word of the day: Farrago – a confused mass of objects or people, any disordered mixture

I’ve been spending the week paying attention to my fellow passengers on the morning train. I only see for them for a short time each day, when at my most befuddled and slow, and when everyone is sitting silently, also befuddled and slow. But over the months, I’ve noticed little dramas play out and the fascinating oddballs become apparent (this isn’t an insult by the way, I am definitely an oddball, oddballs are my people.)

For example, there are the twins, two young men who aren’t twins, but travel together with the same hairstyle and clothes and rucksack. When one gets a haircut, the other gets the same a few days later; when one starts wearing shorts the other does the next day. They get off at the same station and walk side by side, hands in pockets, the same loping walk. But they never speak to each other. They don’t sit together or acknowledge each other in any way. My conclusion is that either: they are psychic, although I’d assume they’d start wearing the shorts on the same day. OR: one is stalking, following and copying the other who doesn’t know how to get rid of him. One day I’m expecting a punch up.

Then there’s the large, middle-aged woman who wears biker boots with spikes on them, a pink streak in her hair and huge colourful jackets. I love her. She’s my hero.

Then, sometimes, there is the angry staring man.

Pastimes of the urban cat-lady

Posted on by inkbiotic

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Collective nouns for cats: Clowder, Clutter, Pounce, Nuisance, Glorying, Glare

Some of you might remember I found a stone cat in the railing at work with a message on the back to contact Facebook and re-hide the cat. Well, I have now added a few new cats to the collection and I need to work out where to put them.

I’m thinking the story is that original cat has been missing for a week because she’s been playing around with other cats, and now she has a family of cats with her (her own babies? a cat cult? a Top Cat gang?) .

I’ve been trying to work out where to put them. Any ideas? It has to be somewhere secluded enough for me to not be noticed putting them out, but not so secluded no one finds them. Another park railing might be good or under a bush. Although neither is very inspired.

Oh and I found this important letter today, sadly no one was around to return it to, but I feel its message will resonate with younger sisters everywhere.

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Text:

Dear older sister

you are mean

your yonger sister